A Perfect Poem
Today remains Sunday, 22 March 2009.
My very dear friend and guru Ms. NMI some time ago turned me on to daily reading of G. Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.(http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/)
Today’s poem thereon is one everyone in their right mind will wish they had written.
"Introduction to Poetry"
by Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
"Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins, from The Apple That Astonished Paris. © University of Arkansas Press, 1996.
My very dear friend and guru Ms. NMI some time ago turned me on to daily reading of G. Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.(http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/)
Today’s poem thereon is one everyone in their right mind will wish they had written.
"Introduction to Poetry"
by Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
"Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins, from The Apple That Astonished Paris. © University of Arkansas Press, 1996.
posted by HH at 8:38 PM
1 Comments:
I love the way this poem engages the senses--and makes me smile. I will say no more, not wishing to tie it to a chair.
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